1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method, printing apparatus and computer program for making documents, wherein a user has great control over the document making process and has no need to search for his documents amongst a large pile of documents mixed with third-party documents.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A method of making documents is known from European Patent Application No. EP 0 873 007. This known method is used in the described form in a multi-function printing system which has one or more queues. In particular, the known method is adapted to give priority to specific jobs on the basis of the location where the relevant orders are given, wherein the entire performance of giving priority and placing the jobs in one or more queues takes place via a programmed set of rules.
Multi-function printing systems or electronic printing systems of this kind typically comprising a receiving module (also termed an input image terminal (IIT)), a controller and a print engine (also termed an image output terminal (IOT)), may or may not be provided with a finishing module (for example a booklet maker). These modules can be combined in one housing but can equally be in the form of loose modules communicating with one another either via a tangible network or via the ether.
The printing system is often disposed at a central location in a user environment so that a number of users can use the system. This usually relates to systems which are relatively expensive, have numerous possibilities of making and finishing documents, are relatively fast, and provide a high print quality, all at a relatively low price per page. This can only be achieved if a large number of documents are made on the printing apparatus. Consequently, often, a large group of users can give jobs for making documents to the associated printing apparatus and they can also receive orders allocated to them by third parties, for example, faxes or e-mails addressed to a specific user, and print the same using a printing apparatus of this kind. Thus a job on behalf of a user means that this job can be given by a user or for that user. For this purpose, there are facilities for feeding jobs to the printing apparatus in various ways, for example, via a network or via the ether (print jobs, faxes, e-mails, etc.) or at the printing apparatus itself via a scanner or other receiving module (copying jobs). Since a printing apparatus of this kind can receive jobs from a number of different sources, while the printing module is frequently unable to process more than one job at a time, apparatus of this kind comprises a mechanism for placing a document making job in a queue. Each time a job is finished, the next job in the queue is carried out. A queue of this kind is normally compiled and processed on the basis of a FIFO concept (first in first out). In this way the jobs are processed on the arrival sequence basis.
However, it is frequently desirable to give specific jobs priority over other jobs. The known method discussed above makes provision for this. For this purpose, a distinction is made between jobs of a first user type and jobs of a second user type. If a job of the first user type arrives, it is placed at the back of the queue. If, however, a job of the second user type arrives, the job is placed at the head of the queue. This means that the second user's job will be executed as soon as the printing apparatus receives a following job from the queue for processing. In this way, the jobs of the second type of user, for example, a departmental secretary who must have the documents available immediately, will at all times have priority over jobs of the first user type, most of the users of the printing apparatus being of that type.
The known method for making documents discussed above has a number of disadvantages. In particular, users of the first type never know when their jobs will be processed. Not only do they have no idea on how long the queue is, but in addition it may be that many other jobs are given by others after they themselves have given a job, where the other jobs have priority over their own jobs. If a user of this kind goes to fetch his documents (a printing apparatus of this kind is frequently at a different location or in a different building) on the assumption that his job has been completed because he had already given sufficient time for the execution of his job, it may happen more than once that his documents are not (completely) ready. This means that the user of the first type has to proceed a second time to fetch the documents when they are ready, and this takes considerable time and also causes annoyance to the relevant user.
On the other hand, the second type of user in turn does not always know when his documents will be ready, because a subsequent user of this type may input a job with priority after the first user has done so. In short, the users, particularly those of the first type, have inadequate control of the performance of their jobs. One strategy to overcome this problem is to wait intentionally an extremely long time before fetching the documents, but this in turn has the disadvantage that the relevant documents are not available to the user for that entire period. A following disadvantage is that the user must search amongst a large stack of finished documents to find the documents made on the basis of his order. A printing apparatus of this kind is frequently provided with a delivery table on which the finished documents are simply stacked in the sequence in which they are printed. Searching for documents in this way still takes a considerable amount of the user's time, is also liable to mistakes, and hence causes annoyance. In addition, documents are frequently damaged by being located on a stack which users have to search through time and time again to find their own documents.